


Six of Bones

by Fontainebleau



Category: The Dowager of Bees - China Mieville, The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: A Game of Poker and its Consequences, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 05:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12204447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Joshua Faraday and Goodnight Robicheaux play poker late at night ...Mag7Week day 5: 'Supernatural'





	Six of Bones

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by China Mieville's story 'The Dowager of Bees', which appears in _Three Moments of an Explosion_ , about the secret knowledge that professional cardplayers share. It was brought into being by  
>  this Tumblr post and the discussion with [28ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts) which followed.
> 
> Thanks to [28ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts) and [wanderingsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingsmith) for advice and comments.

There are card players and there are card players. Some men play just to fit in, because everybody else does, but take no interest in it. Some men know what they’re doing, play thoughtfully and carefully, but have no feel for it, play the game like it’s a difficult lesson they’re not sure they’ve learned well. Some have a spark of talent, could offer a challenge, but lack focus, their mind darting elsewhere halfway through a hand, too easily distracted by the jokes, the girls, the drink. And so many others: weak players who think they’re strong, desperate players who believe in luck, blusterers relying on aggression and intimidation. Marks, all of them, in their different ways.

And there are the real card players. Goodnight Robicheaux is one of those. It’s obvious to Josh from the moment Robicheaux sits down across the table, in the focus that settles on his face, the tiny pause as he picks up his hand and fans it, the calm watchfulness as he takes in the deal. There’s only one player here worthy of the name, one man who can give him a run for his money, and Josh Faraday wants to beat him.

Josh was impressed by him at first, by his reputation, of course, and by his fancy clothes and his easy manner: Robicheaux was an impressive man. But travelling in his company and observing him more closely he’d become suspicious – why was he so thick with the Chinaman? Why so twitchy as they passed through native territory? – and once they’d reached Rose Creek, Josh had been outright contemptuous of Robicheaux’s frozen terror as the last Blackstone fled; Rocks could say what he liked about a jammed breech, Josh knew what he’d seen. But when the table was cleared after dinner and Josh produced the deck from the pocket over his heart and proposed a game of poker, his opinion began to swing round again.

The Comanche dismissed his offer with puzzled disdain, and old Jack Horne declared playing cards to be the devil’s work; it’s a line Josh has heard before, and about himself too. The others joined him, though, and three of them he quickly pegged as amateurs: Rocks you can see only plays because Robicheaux does, Chisolm plays like it’s a chore, and Vasquez like it’s a joke. But Robicheaux: here’s a man who knows his cards, and who knows that it isn’t about the cards, but about the flow; the flow of numbers and suits, the flow of money, the flow of concentration and confidence. 

 

Josh Faraday might not have had an education – he grew up poor and he’s never been on right terms with books – but he’s seen a lot of places and learnt plenty along the way. He’s learnt about guns and fighting and horses and women, a man won’t get far if he don’t learn that, but what he’s put his mind to learning is cards. He knows the kids’ games, the brag he played with the boys in his town, out in the woodstore with stolen tobacco and homebrew so strong and sour it turned his stomach; he knows the solitaires that respectable widows play. Everyone plays poker, and he knows that front to back and back to front, but he’s made it his job to learn everyone else’s games too.

Poker may be his bread and butter, but there’s always space for a little something fancy. Klaberjass he learnt from a cheerful German trader held up in town for four days by a storm; écarté from a travelling preacher who’d not put his former sinful life entirely behind him; piquet he’d been shown by a Zouave down on his luck; he’d watched him playing solitaire with a peculiar deck, bought him a few drinks and learned some more. Euchre? Boston? Game’s not been invented Josh Faraday can’t take you on at and win.

He likes to think it’s in his blood, his father a gambling man like him, and that’s what he says if he’s asked: _learned my tricks at my daddy’s knee_. But the truth is he barely remembers the man who lit out on him and his ma when he was still small; mostly what he remembers is his ma declaring despairingly, _You’ve got your pa in you right enough, you’re as bad a lot as he was, never take thought for anyone but yourself_. He never told her what he did remember for fear she’d say it couldn’t be true; he’d been so young it wasn’t even a real memory, just flashes more like a dream, of a man, impossibly tall and strong, snapping a blow like a thunderclap across his head, conjuring a shining penny from behind his ear, telling him the truth about life that he’d taken to heart: _Don’t trust anyone, kid, don’t matter what they say. Can’t rely on any man but your own sweet self_.

 

Tonight Chisolm is the first to throw in, declaring himself cleaned out and chastened, though to Josh’s eye he’s pleased to push his chair back and be done; he doesn’t look like he relaxes much, but if he does it’s not at the card table. He’s also too good a leader of men to exclude anyone from his farewells, making sure to speak to Horne where he’s sitting with some of the farmers, and taking the silent Comanche with him when he goes outside. But there’s no hiding the warmth that he and Robicheaux have for each other, the way they tease at each other with half-references to old jokes, their bond of affection plain to see. It’s a closed book to Josh, that kind of friendship: he’d been astonished at the way Robicheaux had lit up at the sound of Chisolm’s name in Volcano Springs and a little abashed at his ready response to the summons, the unhesitating willingness to join the strangers’ fight and bring his partner with him.

Though even his enthusiasm has taken a dent now they’re here. What seemed a challenge, a gamble, a battle which could be won by wits and skill, has begun to look a lot like a fool’s errand, closer to – the folk of Rose Creek divided and hesitant, their resources thin and Bogue a wealthy and ruthless man. Chisolm can say what he likes in that calm sure way of his, Josh is getting less and less certain of the outcome here, and it just could be that he needs to start taking thought for number one. Wouldn’t be the only one looking to save his own hide, that’s for sure: he’s watched quite the procession of folk heading out of town, and maybe they’re the wiser ones.

They play on for a while as a four until Rocks throws in too, standing up with a bare nod of acknowledgement and a muttered comment in Robicheaux’s ear: the Cajun watches him mount the stairs and cocks his ear as he thumps his way overhead to their room, then returns his attention to the cards. If Chisolm and Robicheaux leave Josh feeling vaguely wanting, Rocks and Robicheaux intrigue him. Not the thought of what they might get up to together: growing up where he did, you soon get to see that there’s as much of that around as you like; no, it’s the unspoken closeness between them that eats away at him, the way Robicheaux’s always looking around himself for Rocks, and Rocks never far from his side; the way they stand up for each other, back to back against the world; the way at evening camp they’d retreat into their own private space, heads together and talking low, passing a cigarette from hand to hand. He’s seen brothers and partners aplenty, though he’s had neither himself, but never a pair so closely bonded; it’s something he doesn’t begin to understand, that level of trust so openly worn; it fascinates him, watching from the corner of his eye. 

The bar is beginning to empty around them, good folks going to their beds, girls disappearing now the customers are too broke or too drunk for their services, but Vasquez plays on stubbornly, cigar clenched between his teeth, losing, winning a little then losing again. Maybe there’s something in Vasquez’ eyes that Josh could read, if he chose to, and maybe Josh is playing him a little as well, stretching out his legs in his chair, scratching absently at the collar of his shirt where the rusty hair peeks out. Maybe. When Josh’s foot kicks Robicheaux’s boot by accident his dry, ‘Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you?’ and his appraising glance show he recognises the performance for what it is. 

From the moment Josh had stumbled from his horse to the sight of that lean dark figure with his self-assured smile, he’s walked a knife-edge, a game as dangerous as it was irresistible, but when the sparring threatens to tip over into something else, when the glitter in those dark eyes turns inviting, Josh hears a warning in the voice he thinks is his pa’s, and he pulls back from the brink, turns away with a joke, the depths before him too murky, too disturbing. And eventually Vasquez cracks too, throws in his last hand and reaches for his hat. ‘Enough. If I stay I will end by betting my spurs and then my guns.’ He catches Josh’s eye, grinning ruefully. ‘More than I can afford to lose.’ And they both watch as he strolls away outside, spurs jingling.

_One to go, and the only one worth the competition_. ‘Mano a mano?’ Robicheaux’s gold tooth glints as he picks up the deck. 

Two-handed poker’s a different kind of beast, but Josh knows what he’s about. With so few cards on the table the chances alter and the game becomes more difficult to read: it all comes down to bluff and courage, and he’d back himself for those. He pushes in his ante. ‘Bring it on.’ 

The room around them’s almost empty, just a table of hardened barflies and one or two inebriates; the barkeep’s mopping up. Robicheaux deals for them, one card each, face down, and one card each face up. 

Josh is looking at a Three of Diamonds, Robicheaux the Seven of Hearts. Josh eases up his hole card and she winks at him: Queen of Spades. Workable, in a two-hander. 

Robicheaux looks at his own hole card and cracks a one-sided smile. A green player could give away a lot doing that, but Robicheaux is too sly for it to be anything but misdirection. 

Josh puts in his raise, nothing too hurried at this stage. He waits, but Robicheaux seems distracted. ‘In or out?’ asks Josh impatiently, and Robicheaux’s head snaps up. ‘In. Sorry.’ 

The apology’s odd: Robicheaux’s polite, but he doesn’t like Josh and he’s more likely to push than to give. He calls, and then flips out their next cards. 

Josh lounges back in his chair: the Queen of Hearts is smiling up at him like a saucy girl. He can sense the Lady standing at his shoulder, her breath sweet on his neck. 

Robicheaux taps his fingers, seeming to consider. Nine of Spades. Josh scrutinises him. It’s a weak hand; he’d be mad to be thinking of a straight. _Must be sitting on another nine? Even so_. 

Just as he thinks it Robicheaux slides another raise into the centre of the table. Pair of Queens is more than enough in a situation like this: Josh pushes his coins in, then some more. Robicheaux raises an eyebrow and calls. They’re alone in the room apart from the bartender, head close in conversation with the last of the girls. 

Robicheaux deals their fourth cards, hands caressing the deck. Nine of Clubs. Not what Josh was hoping for at this stage, and damn him if Robicheaux isn’t looking at the Ten of Diamonds, pretty as you like. But he can’t afford to get rattled: Robicheaux wants him to think he’s sitting on something good, but like as not it’s a four or a two. 

He raises again; his girls will see him all the way, he’s sure. He looks at Robicheaux and grins; Robicheaux’s answering smile is as sharp as a fox as he matches Josh’s stake.

Last card, last chance. Robicheaux deals, for himself the Jack of Clubs, for Josh … the Six of Bones.

The pit falls out of Josh’s stomach. _Six of fucking Bones. Now?_ The white bones are laid out neatly on the face of the card in two rows of three; they’re thin, sharply pointed like the curving ribs of a fish. They’re pure white, the figure 6 and the tiny bone in each corner the same, standing out against the yellowed surface of the card. _Of course now._

Josh looks up into a pair of pale eyes watching him calmly from across the table. ‘Seen it before.’ It’s not a question, and Robicheaux nods once. ‘Something like. Not for a few years, but yes. You?’ 

Josh casts a glance around the room, but there’s no one to see or hear. ‘Never one of these. Chains, though, a Ten, and once a Crow. Ain’t something you forget.’ 

Yeah, Josh Faraday has learned a lot, but he doesn’t talk about everything he knows. You won’t hear him say that not all decks are the same and not all cards are the same. Not always. Sometimes you can catch the pattern on the back of a card running a different way from the rest in another man’s hand; sometimes when he’s counting the cards it doesn’t add up the way it should, but if there’s something strange then it’s best to exchange a glance and keep it quiet and make sure it’s tucked away before anyone gets to see who shouldn’t. Live long enough, go far enough, and you’ll see it all. Josh knows more than people credit him with, and that’s fine by him.

‘When were you inducted?’ asks Robicheaux, fingers smoothing the edge of the card delicately. 

Josh keeps his voice low. ‘Four-five years back. In a bar in Colorado. I might have been playing dumb. Though I don’t reckon any of ‘em was what they seemed.’ It’s a scene he’s taken out and relived, over and over, but the shock, the oceanic strangeness, never fades. 

Josh had been playing young and green that night, not knowing then just how young and green he really was; as a strategy it usually worked well – he’d brag and draw attention to himself, playing eagerly and poorly through the first hour of the evening, establishing himself as a mark, then as his opponents drank and tired he’d step up his game little by little, marvelling aloud at his luck, and if it all went right he’d waltz away at the night’s end with a hatful of coins and notes, too quick to catch. So when the dark bearded gentleman in the fancy coat clapped him on the shoulder and invited him to join their game ‘out of the crush’, Josh took it as an opportunity. 

The Easterner ushered him to a small back room where two other players were waiting at the table, a burly man in a fur jacket that made the sweat pour off Josh just looking at it, who gave him a long stare, and a little shrimpy fellow, no better dressed than he was himself, looking like his ma’d be coming to take him home any minute. They were a strange bunch, but Josh reckoned he was as good as any of them, so he smiled all sunny and told them his name like he was just some dumb Irish kid. The shrimpy guy smiled back and said, ‘Howdy’, then he picked up the deck and did something smart with his hands, cards fluttering like birds’ wings and then snapping back, and Josh must have been sitting with his mouth gaping for real, because the man in the fur huffed a laugh and rumbled, ‘Play, not show.’

Losing his first few hands wasn’t hard, and it gave him time to size up his companions; he could tell straight away they were all class players, and friendly enough too, the little guy in a flashy way and the Easterner keen on the sound of his own voice, though the man in the fur jacket didn’t do more than laugh at the others’ jokes. He was putting down some clear drink from a bottle of his own, and when he saw Josh looking he pushed the bottle over for him to try, and damn it if one gulp didn’t have him choking and his eyes pouring; the man laughed fit to bust, though he drank it down without a flinch. And after a while Josh began to get the idea that the Eastern fellow and the shrimpy guy knew each other a mite well too, like they maybe hadn’t just fetched up at the same table by chance, and though the one with the beard was better dressed and more smooth-looking, he seemed to do what the other told him. 

All things considered it wasn’t so much of a surprise that when Josh began to warm up slow and subtle, making his game a little more competitive, he just kept on losing, not every hand, but more than he won, slow and steady, even though in the end he was concentrating fiercely, never riding his luck. He might have had a trick or two of his own could have sweetened his hand, but he was bright enough to see what a bad move it would be to use them at this table, and he had to reckon that if he came out of the night at a loss, it would be a fair price for the lesson he’d taken. 

Then it happened. The Eastern fellow was dealing, halfway through a hand; Josh was giving himself one more chance to make good on a pair of Nines. As the cards flicked out he caught a glimpse of a red back that should have been blue, and a cold chill gripped his stomach – surely he hadn’t let slip one of his little insurances? Could he have been so careless? But no, the card flipped face up, and the man in fur hissed between his teeth as the Easterner swore. 

It was a Ten, but not a card he’d ever seen, its pattern ten yellow chain links on a dark background, four interlinked on each side and two alone in the centre. The links were heavy, with a cunning highlight that made them seem to shine: he knew without being told that they were meant for gold, thick and unbreakable, the little figure 10 in each corner wound around and through with a tiny golden chain. 

_Must be a joke, though a damn fool one_ : Josh looked at the Easterner and growled, ‘Tryin’ to make a cod of us?’ 

The shrimpy guy raised his eyebrows. ‘He don’t know.’ 

The Easterner looked pained. ‘Congratulations,’ he said to Josh. 

Josh pushed his chair back, showing Ethel handy at his side. ‘What’s your game? Don’t take kindly to fake cards and dumb tricks.’ 

‘Calm,’ rumbled the man in fur. ‘No call for that: no tricks here. This is a hidden suit. Ten of Chains.’ 

Josh looked from one to the other of them, searching for a hint of trickery or a glimmer of humour, but saw only seriousness, and perhaps a spark of concern. ‘Hidden suit?’ But even as he said it, he felt a little slipping rightness at the idea: _for those who know. Those who play_. ‘Tell me,’ he said, crowding back to the table again, and the atmosphere relaxed. 

‘Well now … ,’ said the Easterner, and so Josh had been initiated, had become a real cardplayer, had heard for the first time about Bees and Chimneys and Teeth, Dowagers and Detectives, and what might or should happen when you found them. 

Too soon, the man in fur grew impatient. ‘We play this hand out,’ he commanded. 

Josh’s gaze refocused on Robicheaux, who was watching him attentively. ‘Drew my third Nine, though it didn’t come to matter none.’

‘So you paid a forfeit?’ 

Josh’s face closed and he jerked his chin curtly. ‘All of us, then and there.’ 

‘Bad?’ 

He shifted uneasily. ‘Heard of worse.’ Many things more painful had happened to him since, and some more shaming: it had left no visible trace, and the matter had never gone beyond the walls of that small room, not from him nor the others. He’d kept an ear out after, knowing what to listen for even if it was told different ways, but no one had ever told him his own story in any form he could recognise. In time since he’d picked up enough from hints and rumours, of other hands and other penalties, to understand that he’d fared lightly that night. Josh Faraday always was a lucky guy.

He’s not going to say any more, so he asks instead, ‘Yours?’ 

The lines on Robicheaux’s face deepen in the lamplight as he creases his brow in reminiscence. ‘Good few years back now. Before the war, when I was younger than you.’ He raises his eyes to meet Josh’s gaze, self-deprecating. ‘Back in Louisiana there were plenty of occupations for a well-brought up young man – horses, fighting, gambling and whoring. I was more in the booklearning way myself, but I did my fair share of the others too. This one time a friend of my cousins in Lafayette came to town, Fournier he was called, money burning a hole in his pocket, and he was a demon for cardplaying.’ 

‘We all went out on the town looking for entertainment – brandy and games and high-class girls; and when it came to the card table, that night it seemed Fournier couldn’t do wrong, draws falling just the way he liked. Somehow we two ended up in a high-stakes game with an old cardsharper who’d worked on the riverboats ‘fore they ended; he had some high old tales to tell of murders and ghosts and steamboat races along the river, and there was his friend there too, as tough and close-lipped as the other man was smooth and talkative, and a dark-skinned Creole, dressed up as smart as the rest of us with a silver-topped cane.’ 

‘Well, I soon found I was way out of my depth there, couldn’t draw a good hand or bluff a poor one, but just like before Fournier kept on playing and winning and boasting and winning some more. Then a round came when the riverboatman’s friend went out early, but the four or us who were left in had hands like you’d never seen. I had a flush of Clubs I was clinging onto, first real luck I’d had all night, and it got to be that the Creole man was standing on three Jacks and a Nine, the riverboatman was showing two black Sevens and two red Threes, and Fournier, he was looking at five to eight straight. We were all eyeing each other and nudging the stakes up to see who’d crack first, and the riverboatman had just kept grinning wider with every card that went down.’ 

‘When we finally called, Fournier smirked fit to choke and flipped over a four: he’d made his straight. Then the Creole showed his other Jack, and the light went out of him straightaway, but the riverman was still grinning as wide as a horsecollar. He turned his card, and when he laid it out, he had a full house, Sevens over Threes, and he had two black Sevens and a Seven of Scissors.’ 

_No wonder he ain’t so rattled now_. Josh’s stomach is queasy. He’s never seen a hand with a Scissor card, and he never wants to. _Bones are bad enough_. He waits for Robicheaux to say more, raises an eyebrow. ‘What came after?’

‘After the explanations? You know how it works.’ And Josh does. ‘The riverboatman’s friend, he spoke it, each player to give the winner the thing he had with him he valued the most. None of us had much to say at that, though the riverboatman had the look of a coyote about him. The Creole went first, laughed short and harsh, and took out a silver cigar-case from his pocket. Had his initials on it, and you could see it was a gift he hated to part with, from his daddy on his twenty-first, maybe, or from his fiancée, who could say? “Much good may it do you,” he said and tossed it on the table, but the riverboatman just said, “Thank you,” and put it into his coat.’

‘Then he looked at me questioning, and I was more grateful than I can say even now that I’d taken a certain letter from my pocket before I left home and put it inside a book on my shelf. So I thought, and eventually I had to take out my notebook and pass it over to him: it looked like nothing, a little worn book full of writing, but I had to grit my teeth to do it, knowing that I was handing my poems and thoughts over to someone who valued them so little he might trample them in the street.’ 

‘Then he looked at Fournier, and Fournier cursed him up and down, while his fingers worked the fancy pin out from his tie and dropped it down glittering on the table.' 

'“Gold?” asked the man, poking it with his finger.' 

'“Worth twenty dollars,” said Fournier, “and I wish you joy of it.”' 

'But the man pushed it back towards him again, a gleam in his eye, and said, “M’sieur, I don’t think so.” And he laid a finger on the Seven and he didn’t say more. '

'Fournier looked at him with pure hatred, then snatched up the pin and said all choked, “Damn you.” And he reached under his collar and took off a chain from round his neck which I’d never seen, and on it a little locket case. He laid it on the table, and you could see from the way he touched it that he couldn’t bear to do it, and then he said clearly, “I hope they take it from your corpse.”'

'Well, there was no more playing after that, as you can imagine, the game was done and the evening too, and when we got outside Fournier and I were happy to part company without saying more.’

Robicheaux pauses to refill his glass and leans back in his chair, gaze distant with memory. ‘I heard after that he’d gone home to a cold welcome: seemed he’d made a promise in secret to marry a certain girl, but they quarrelled and her family found out how it was; there was considerable bad blood over it and in the end it came to a fight; Fournier’s own brother took his part, but he was hurt, lost one of his hand, and soon enough after Fournier took off north on his own.’ Robicheaux puts his empty glass back down. ‘Was found dead in a hotel room not too long after – swallowed poison. Gambling debts, they said.’

 _Fuck me, but that’s a story. What would I have given, if it were me at that table?_ His horse Jack don’t exactly fit in his vest pocket, and right now he doesn’t own him anyway; Ethel, at his side? Or his deck of cards, he supposes. He has no fancy pins or watches, no pocketbook or cigarcase; he has nothing of his ma or pa, no keepsake or token of affection, nothing that isn’t meant for the here and now. And thinking on the forfeit, it seems a poor thing to him somehow, that a third-hand gun and a stolen deck of cards should be his most valued possessions.

‘We’ve told our tales,’ says Robicheaux, attention back on the ten cards between them, the impossible white bones at one end, ‘and I don’t suppose it’ll come to that, but still, we need to see it out. Remember the rules?’ His smile is disturbingly bland.

Josh furrows his brow. He knows this. It’s not something you can learn from a book, not rules laid down in black and white for anyone to see. When he was initiated, the man in the fur had pulled out a little notebook with tiny cramped writing, flipped through a few pages and wrote an extra line in it, but the other two – just took it as though everyone knew. And after, he’d found you could pick it up, a word here and a hint there, if you knew what you were listening for; if someone’s got a tale to tell about a famous game or a notorious cardsman, give them your attention, because they’ll be telling you something about combinations and hands, forfeits and favours, about Chains or Chimneys, even if you may not know at the time what it is.

‘Think I do,’ says Josh. He flips his hole card, revealing the second queen. ‘Pair of court cards, 3-6-9 in five suits.’ 

‘Rank’s Courtesy,’ says Robicheaux mildly. ‘Winner to get a memory. One memory from each losing player.’

 

Josh isn’t a coward. Part of what’s in him that comes out as bravery is just the love of the rush, the spark that lights when everything goes off and he’s at the centre of it all: he’s done things which he later can’t explain – insulted men to their faces, stepped up one against three or four, faced down guns – feeling nothing but euphoria, alight with the thrill and the power. In other moments he’s faced down the consequences of bad decisions and luck turned sour with a grin pasted on his face as his scalp prickled and his stomach sank cold, held up only by the iron determination not to show weakness before another. Now? He looks at the man opposite him, at the lines of pain etched deep on his face, and it’s something he has to drag right out of the depths of himself. 

‘What’ll it be, Goodnight?’ He stretches out a hand and an ace of clubs flickers into his fingers. _Something from the war? Something to stop me pulling the trigger, set me shaking and sweating when I try? Some memory flayed with remorse and salted with regret to wake me shouting in the night? Guilt to ride me ragged and wear me to the grave?_ ‘Winner’s choice.’ He doesn’t want any of Robicheaux’s memories, but what man could resist the chance to give something like that away? ‘So long as it ain’t to do with you and Billy fucking.’

Robicheaux looks at him long and steady. He runs a finger along his cards: Seven of Hearts, Nine of Spades, Ten of Diamonds, Jack of Clubs. Then he picks up his hole card, looks up again, makes him wait. 

Josh shifts impatiently. ‘Don’t see how drawing it out’s going to …’ Robicheaux doesn’t let him finish, places it face-up. 

Eight of Ivy. It’s green, shockingly green among the reds and blacks, eight heart-shaped leaves with tendrils running between, coiling up to circle the number and letter in each corner. _Shit_. That look, that hesitation; Josh’s been bluffed, played for a fool … and he’s lost. 

‘Why ...’ he starts, but he doesn’t need to ask. He’s lost and he’s off the hook. He spreads his arms wide. ‘Go ahead, Goody. Pick a memory. Whatever you like. Want to remember how you grew up poor? How the other boys tore into you because your ma wasn’t respectable? Times you got run out of town, empty pockets and an empty belly, finding out your friends weren’t so friendly as they seemed?’ 

Robicheaux sighs impatiently. ‘Very dramatic. Has your life really been so void of pleasure?’ His smile turns sharp-edged again. ‘Surely there are memories you treasure.’ 

And Josh tries to slam the lid as they come bubbling up, the little golden points in the bare tapestry of his past, moments he still takes out to comfort himself on a cold and hungry night: the first time he pulled off a sleight-of-hand and saw the circle of admiring faces around him; those times with Dinah when it meant something to him, to them both; the time he took the final pot from Pretty Joe Livingstone and Aubrey Willis with a trio of Kings and bought drinks for the whole cheering bar. He grits his teeth: he’s not going to beg. ‘Make your choice.’ 

Robicheaux laughs as though he can read Josh’s thoughts on his face, and maybe he can, because he says, ‘Don’t worry. I don’t need your petty triumphs to keep me warm at night.’

 _No, you have a dark-eyed man to do that for you, don’t you?_ The Six of Bones is there in front of him, its little white spikes snagging his gaze. 

‘What I remember,’ says Josh, and immediately he wants to clamp both hands over his mouth to stop it spilling out, but it’s too late: the story crawls up relentlessly, tiny pins scratching in his throat, and he has no choice but to choke it up. ‘What I remember is what my pa told me a long time ago. I was too small to know properly, but I remember him, he was tall like a giant and he fetched a penny out from behind my ear. I saw it shining there in his hand, like he could do magic, he knew everything, and he said, _“Son…”_ Josh can hear it now, the voice of the man he never knew, _“… don’t trust anyone, don’t matter what they say. Only one man you can trust and that’s your own sweet self.”_

When he stops the silence rings loud in the empty room. ‘Not what I expected,’ says Robicheaux, though whether he means the story or the green and white cards still face-up on the table is impossible to say. He reaches across and sweeps their hands together before Josh can protest, snaps and shuffles the deck and it’s over. _Count them up, lay them out, you’ll find nothing but four suits, red and black, and the one-eyed Jacks to wink at you ‘bout what they know_.

Robicheaux stands stiffly and drains his glass. ‘Call it a night.’ 

Josh can’t resist. ‘Going to get into bed with your Chinaman?’ 

Robicheaux looks down his nose at him in that irritating way he has. ‘He’s from Korea, not China,’ he says, like it’s a difference Josh should make something of. ‘And if you’re looking to see me feel shame, your effort’s wasted: I’ll tell anyone who cares to know that Billy is the only good thing in my whole sorry existence.’ 

Josh watches as he climbs the stair heavily, then reaches for his deck to lay out one last game of solitaire, listening to Robicheaux’s tread along the corridor above and the squeak and click of a door. 

He’s reached the sweet spot between whiskey and fatigue when he feels the moment could go on forever: the fall is coming, no doubt of it, but right now it seems infinitely far away. And as he moves and flips and stacks the cards, black and red, Hearts and Clubs, Diamonds and Spades, Josh pictures Robicheaux in the room above, taking off his boots, folding his clothes, sighing as he slides into bed beside his sleeping lover. It’s not the sex that seduces him but the image of comfort that pierces him through. He’s lain down alone all his life, and now it may be too late for that to change.

\--

Josh Faraday hasn’t woken without a hangover in over two years, and this week is not the time he intends to break that streak. The sun is already pouring through the curtains obscenely bright; he closes his eyes against the thudding in his head, then groans his way out of bed to splash his head and pull on his pants. The glass on the wall above the basin shows him his face, skin blotchy and eyes muddy. _Last night …_ the white bones and twining green ivy, Robicheaux’s forfeit, Vasquez’ glittering eyes: he feels as though something has slipped from his grasp. 

The thought of food and the need to speak to people set his stomach churning, but there’s a day’s work to do, and the prospect of coffee at least, so he stamps into his boots, ties his neckerchief, runs his hands through his hair and winks at his reflection. _World sees what you want it to, every cardplayer knows that_.

As he thumps down the stairs the sound of conversation rises to meet him: the others, Comanche excepted, are still sitting over the remains of their breakfast. Horne is talking earnestly, ‘… finish the furthest trenches, and see to the tents.’ 

‘At least digging’s something they’re good for,’ says Rocks with some feeling. 

‘Yeah,’ says Josh as he saunters over, ‘maybe they can beat Bogue’s men to death with their shovels.’ 

He hooks out a chair next to the Mexican and slides into it, snagging the coffeepot as Horne frowns at him. ‘Now, son, there’s no cause to belittle these good people; as long as we and the town put our trust in each other, God will bless our venture.’ 

Josh grunts; Horne seems as fresh as a daisy, but he guesses that’s clean living for you. 

More annoyingly Robicheaux seems equally cheerful, waving his coffeecup as he holds forth, Rocks’ hand resting lightly on the back of his chair. ‘Now that was never the advice my daddy gave me.’ 

Chisolm creases into a grin. ‘Lord, Goody, not more of your daddy’s wise words. What did he say this time?’ 

Josh learned long ago not to show his feelings on his face. He doesn’t remember his pa, left before he was old enough to know; all he had of him was what his ma had to tell, and none of it good. He’d hear other men speak of fatherly advice, words offered to guide and direct, but he’d had none of that. Still, leastways it had set him free to make his own mistakes, find his own way, not beholden to anyone for who he was or how he got through life. 

Robicheaux grins back at Chisolm and gestures expansively. ‘He’d say to me, Goodnight, trust’s for fools. There’s no man you can trust but your own sweet self.’ 

Rocks turns to look at him curiously, and Chisolm frowns in disagreement. ‘Don’t that strike you as a bleak philosophy? And I don’t reckon it’s true; trust may not be something comes easy in this life, but it’s a poor way to live without it.’ 

‘Amen to that,’ chimes in Horne.

Chisolm turns his attention to Josh, pushes a plate of bacon towards him. ‘Eat up quick,’ he says benevolently, ‘there’s a lot to do. You and Vasquez need to get finished setting the dynamite, then you can join in the digging.’ 

‘I’m sure we’ll find Goody here hard at it with a spade when we come over,’ snarks Josh, and even Rocks laughs at that. 

‘My talents lie primarily in the area of supervision,’ says Robicheaux with mock dignity, and in the burst of laughter that follows, Chisolm’s guffaw and Horne’s reedy chuckle, Vasquez’ rumble of amusement, Josh feels a flash of warmth. They’re an odd bunch, he can’t deny it, and quite how he’s found himself in this situation he’s still not certain. But maybe he hasn’t made such a bad call, come here to do a good deed with a band of men he can respect. 

He gulps his coffee, strong and hot, and Vasquez drops a biscuit onto his plate as he helps himself to more. ‘Eat, güero,’ he says, ‘you’ll need it if you’re going to keep up with me.’ 

Josh takes the biscuit and the bacon and grins at him in challenge. ‘I’m more than a match for you, any time of the day or night.’ 

‘Cabrón,’ snorts Vasquez, but there’s an answering spark in his eye. 

‘No time for arguing,’ says Sam, standing up, ‘we all put in our two cents’ worth, we can bring this round.’ 

And Josh thinks for the first time, _We can do this. These folks with their godfearing, sodbusting, straight-and-narrow lives, we can save them. We’ll save their town for them_.

‘Well, my daddy said a lot of things, it’s true’ says Robicheaux reflectively, leaning back in his chair to catch Rocks’ eye with a look that’s fooling nobody, ‘and most of them, I will admit, were horseshit.’


End file.
